General Motors and Chrysler – two of what used to be known as Detroit's "big three" car-makers – yesterday submitted their restructuring plans to the US government, to fulfill a requirement of the bailout plan agreed during the last weeks of the Bush administration. The plans outline their efforts to stay afloat in an industry sinking in overcapacity, weak demand and outdated strategies.

Chrysler, the smaller company, produced the longer document at 177 pages. But the company's managers laid out the options on one page: Chrysler can survive in the short run as a stand-alone company, even with union concessions and the $11bn in government financing it is requesting. But to make it in the longer term, Chrysler is proposing a strategic partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat. How two secondary players can survive in a global economy in which even Toyota – the world's most successful car-maker in recent years – is losing money is an open question. If US domestic demand remains below 9.1m cars and trucks annually, Chrysler anticipates that it will not be able to generate enough cash to keep its debt from climbing higher.

The third option for Chrysler is euphemistically called an "Orderly wind down." You and I would call it bankruptcy. Chrysler estimates that its creditors would receive back just 25 cents on the dollar and the federal government only five cents for its assistance. Three million workers could lose their jobs.

GM's plan is shorter on paper, but the odds it faces could be even longer. GM's corporate structure harks back to the heady days of empire, when the company dominated the car shopping landscape with brands like Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Saturn. GM added Saab and Hummer to its portfolio in recent years. Each brand required its own factories, designers, marketing teams and network of dealers. GM has tried to prop up this unwieldy array of brands by building different brands in the same factories.

Chrysler closed its plant in my home state of Delaware at the end of December. GM's Delaware plant is going back on line next week, but its future is uncertain. The plant builds two marginal products: the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky.

GM is planning to reduce the number of brands it sells by selling or closing Hummer (to the delight of environmentalists), selling Saturn (if anyone wants to buy the brand), and reducing Pontiac to a name slapped on a couple of sporty coupes. Oldsmobile disappeared several years ago. From its once sprawling empire, GM will be left with four brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC (its truck line). Why keep Buick? It turns out the brand is popular in China, thanks to some quirk of history.

GM plans to reduce its number of dealers from 7,367 in 2004 to 4,100 in 2014. Overall, the company plans to cut 47,000 more jobs this year. The total reduction in job from 2000 to 2014 is expected to be 122,000. And even so, GM has enough cash to last only through the end of next month, and is asking for an additional $16bn in federal assistance. Investors are being hurt too - GM is proposing to cut the value of its corporate bonds by two-thirds.

All three Detroit automakers are talking with the United Auto Workers union on the vexing question of medical benefits for workers and retirees. These are described as legacy costs, but the overcapacity of factories, brands and dealers weighs heavily as well.

To justify the billions of dollars in taxpayer funding being requested, the automakers not only have to atone for the sins of the past, but have to show that they are looking to the future. GM states in its plan that the company "has also been at the forefront in the development of alternative fuel vehicles," and touts its development of the Volt plug-in electric vehicle. This commitment to green technology is a new-found virtue. Only four years ago, GM killed its plans for an electric car, even though sales of Toyota's Prius hybrid were on the rise.

Delaware's governor Jack Markell isn't waiting for Detroit to create the automotive future. Yesterday, Markell awarded a modest economic development grant to a local company, AutoPort, to convert gasoline-powered vehicles to a new technology called Vehicle to Grid, or V2G, which is being developed at the University of Delaware. V2G enables vehicles to store electricity at night when demand is low and return it to the grid during hours of peak demand. The small but bitter irony, though, is that the company is converting Toyota Scions being shipped into the Port of Wilmington - not the unsold Saturns and Pontiacs piling up at the nearby GM plant.